


Suffer the Consequences

by Etnoe



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Billy Hargrove Lives, F/M, Masturbation, Post-Season/Series 03, Resistance, Restraints, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-11 09:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20544230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: Billy's maybe not all there after the Mind Flayer. It's enough for him and Max to deal with, but then they have to deal with Max stumbling on some weird flowers, too.





	Suffer the Consequences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlsarewolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/gifts).

College essay topics. After everything, that was still something Billy had to think about.

It might come by way of some kind of military education now instead of via Hawkins High, but the basic idea had stayed the same - even though he could turn his hands palms up and trace black veins where they were supposed to show green-blue through the skin.

"I know what it's like to be an animal," Billy tossed out. "That ought to catch an eye when they're reading through applications, wouldn't you say?"

Like throwing a card on the table, the way a badass card player would in a movie, inviting all eyes to rest on a king of...? Not hearts, with this audience; a king of clubs might suit their expectations of him--or of their lives in general, since it wasn't like he'd smacked around all the unclucky assholes in the waiting room. Though he _could_ have got to them all, there were far too many ways things could have gone differently and it would have been his own hands doing far worse than that, but ... at least he'd only got two of them.

Opposite him, Buckley deigned to prop herself up from pretending to lounge on her stiff, bolted-down chair like it was a poolside deck chair, Harrington left off squinting in vague dislike to gape in surprise, and Will Byers joined him, finally making an expression other than "haunted".

But beside him, Max set a look on him with the quirked eyebrows - Billy knew all about that one. Since she hadn't said anything he absolutely knew that she'd decided on being barely impressed, and on wanting that to be clear to him. Or maybe that was really how she felt - exactly that badass, despite being deep in this black magic bullshit since they'd moved to Hawkins. More badass than him, without having to think about it the way he did.

He looked over and Max had him nailed with the expected look. She tapped the butt of her pencil on her little notepad, where other of ideas for essay topics were listed, all meaningful and prompting about it.

Yeah, yeah, he was supposed to take this seriously, he'd promised, sure.

"No shittin'. From the web of influence that _he_ had." Billy waved a hand, waved it off. "Every mind and body was in the mix, like we were all in it together. You know, the Flayed. He was the one who was always there, of course. But it was actually pretty easy to get to figure out the other minds."

Comforting, too. Kind of. Heather had still been there as much as she could, and they'd moved together when possible for more calm, two mirrors opposite each other to catch the reflections of shreds of familiarity, reassurance.

"Shit, there were a ton of rats with us," Billy said. Will Byers actually gigled.

"Out of the goodness of my heart, I'm not going to make the obvious joke about you," Harrington informed him.

Max cleared her throat dramatically. "How is that supposed to help you pick a topic for your application, Billy. Come on."

"Confirmation that I'm a freak. Military lab high school would be lucky to have a dude who could tell them how to train rat spies."

It was fucking incredible how he could still play the game. Even if Max refused to be interested, the other three were engaged, though Buckley was rolling her eyes. Maybe he had someone else to thank for that - an echo of Heather or her mom, of Chrissy, of Jacob giving him the energy to keep on with the act.

"My deep interest in the natural sciences ..." Max narrated as she wrote. "Opens many doors..."

"You're good at this," he muttered.

"She asked for tips," Buckley said.

"Oh my God, Max. Cool it. I bet you went and bugged Nancy Wheeler, too, didn't you?" There were a good two months left before any semesters started anywhere. If the US military secretly wanted to stash him somewhere out of the way instead of bothering to give him an education, it would still take a while to set up the cell and chains or whatever.

"Do I look bothered?" Max asked. "And _you_ said this was a good idea."

She was the only one in the room who didn't need to be there. Only one solid hit across the face - the swelling was long-gone already, though there was still bruising.

It was crazy that she was here, acting like they were arguing about the best place to throw some cash away on takeout. Not at all like he'd hit her or been part of all the other Flaying shit. Max's steady calm felt like a dare, and he was about to melt down about it. He was going to have to muster the energy to distract himself. Buckley was the best bet, he figured - she liked dramatics, and he used to be entirely capable of providing.

The door opened, so at least that was postponed. But the desolate look on El's face as she stepped into the waiting room made Billy's stomach drop - she couldn't be any closer to using her powers again.

"Hey, El! Billy knows what it's like to be an animal!" Max almost yelled.

The doctor with El perked up too, and Billy's stomach felt worse. He didn't actually want the medical staff to have any more reasons to pay attention to him.

"Wow," said El. Her mouth opened, closed, and her face settled on looking confused. "Wha--what _is_ that like?"

She limped over to drop into the seat beside him but didn't really notice she was limping, only a little of the usual impatience evident. So Billy had to tell her all about being a minimum of three hundred exploding rats immediately, a little angry at himself for the need to please. But that was the worst he felt - it wasn't like she was twisting his arm, and he couldn't stay mad at El herself, not when she was right in front of him.

"Fine. Ratology is on the list," Max said when Billy had to wrap it up and go for his examination. "Guess you'll be out of here in no time."

It was better to leave Hawkins. _When would that ever not be the better option?_ \- Billy could ask his waiting room buddies, rile them up if they argued with him about it, bitching together if they wanted to be sensible ... ha fucking ha. Like they weren't going to stop being waiting room buddies soon. Joyce Byers had been making noise about how it was time to leave them alone again, looking about ready to go axe crazy if no one listened, and Harrington and Buckley had outright been told that they were cleared of truth serum side effects as well as of more attempts to pump them for information.

Being able to leave Hawkins was something that should blow his mind - getting to do it on someone else's dime than his own or Dad's, and that Dad wouldn't give him trouble about it while still nervously ignoring how Billy was bleeding black.

Mrs Byers had already had a discussion with him about how the Hawkins lab had done fucked-up stuff with Will and covering up his disappearance in 1983, warning him to really think about whether or not things would get that bad again. El had asked him, careful of his emotions and sincerely with a clammy little hand around his, if he'd gone crazy.

It didn't matter. He didn't want warnings or a crowded little waiting rooms full of halfway-commiseration. Those were more things to leave behind, just like the fleetingly natural urges to walk into houses where missing people had lived, and to talk to people he didn't give a shit about and who wouldn't hear the voice they were most hoping for. Whatever the government could figure out from him and whatever danger they posed to him, he deserved anything that could get dished out.

Max took the next hit instead; so much for karma.

It came out of nowhere. Beginning of September, a few cool mornings and nights muscling in on the still-warm daylight hours, and after the coolest morning so far, Max came tearing into the house.

She ran everywhere, it was whatever. Always on a mission, often with secrets that didn't have a thing to do with monsters and were the usual teenage girl stuff. There was no need to pay attention - until the third shower.

Billy put together that there was a problem over the course of the morning. He heard Max come in and slam doors, and vaguely concluded as he lifted his smallest weights, taking it easy, that the second one must have been the bathroom door, because the shower was running. Maybe there was something to freshen up for and she'd be telling him she was going out in a while. Later there was the sound of another slammed door, which had to be Max holing up in her bedroom. Then he heard the shower running again, and after maybe an hour's break, once again.

He put aside the book he'd been reading for that same hour and went to linger outside the bathroom door. Finally knocked. "Max, I gotta piss."

"Wait! Give me a minute."

She sounded scared. Billy blinked at the door, then looked around on reflex. It was noon. The shadows weren't doing anything they weren't supposed to.

"Or, like, a few minutes ... I'll be a little while longer, I'll yell when I'm out."

"You hurt?"

"Go away, Billy!"

He knocked again. "Max."

"_Please_."

And then he left. Sure, he didn't do stuff people told him to, unless they were his dad or the US government or a monster. But Max also didn't ask nicely.

When Max hollered the bathroom was free, he first took a look around it - perfectly normal, except that while every tiled and glass surface was dripping, the air was not as steamy as it should have been. Max had definitely kept standing under the water after it had gone cold. He went to her room and went through the knocking routine, this time with no answer. So he tried the door.

She'd showered with her clothes on, was Billy's first thought. And then: What the fuck, no!

Max lay on the floor, huddled with her hands clasped tight and pressed against her stomach like she'd been kicked, or was hiding something small, or... She wasn't even shivering in her soaked jeans and sweatshirt, out cold.

Billy scooped her off the ground, trying to support her head like you would a baby, and set her down on her bed. Then he almost phoned her mother to come home from work. Susan didn't have her own car, and he didn't either anymore, so they'd have to wait for a bus to come along or call his dad - Max couldn't wait that long to get into dry clothes, or at least out of her wet ones. He decided not to pussy around and got her out of the sweatshirt, shoes and socks, jeans - Jesus Christ, that was weird, dragging the wet denim off her skin. He got distracted when he realised how high her temperature was. How had she got this sick this fast?

He bundled her under the covers and towelled her hair with a couple of T-shirts from her dresser. It was much darker soaked, and he put aside thoughts of shadows. She hadn't taken an ice bath and there had still been lingering heat in the bathroom, so her issue was more likely to be normal, probably a twenty-four hour flu as the season changed. Will Byers and his mom were too nervous not to sound a red alert if things were starting to go to shit. The phone would have rung by shower number two. He sat on the bed, staring at Max, and thought about how their number was in the phonebook if he got too paranoid.

It nearly scared him when Max spoke. Barely a whisper, the words put together from memory a few seconds later, as much as from what his ears could catch.

"I guess ... now I know what it's like to be an animal too."

"Hey! What's wrong with you? What happened?"

Max stared at him, eyes dark and fixed. "You smell. And it's good. Go away," she whispered - were her teeth clenched? - and then wrapped an arm around his leg. It was a limp grip, then went tight as she used the hold to pull herself off her back in order to wrap her other arm around it too. She shoved her head against his stomach and breathed heavy.

"Or, if we stay just, um, really still." Max said this like the suggestion was one in a long line of proposed solutions, and all Billy could do as he tried to figure that aspect of the situation out too was raise his arms higher, keeping his hands nowhere near her. He was in shorts from his weightlifting, and there was skin-on-skin action happening here that could not be thought of as "action", because after everything he refused to die of a mere heart attack.

"Like this? You sure you can't sit up?"

Billy could feel her tense and relax as she thought about it, because one of her hands was squeezing into his thigh as she did. Kind of a lot of her body seemed to be tensing and relaxing. There had to be a better way to deal with this.

"Come on, Max. I'll wrap you up. You'd probably better stay warm, since your hair is still wet."

Max nodded stiffly. She moved with his grip as he helped her, clearly having regained some strength. The big sign that everything wasn't OK was that her fingers curled round his hand or his arms at any opportunity. He managed to cover her up with the bedclothes, but Max didn't help with that part of it even though she had it together enough that she would have noticed that she was down to underwear. 

They ended up in a huddle against her headboard and pillows, Max as bundled up as he could get her. But the thing was, it was difficult to keep her that way. Billy kept his arms above the blanket, and rubbed the curve of her head a little as the most comforting thing he could think of doing. And he let her grip shift, her legs move. The way she pressed against him was pure Max on a mission, antsy to do what she felt she needed to.

Billy had been letting Max stay on her mission lately. Accompanying him to the library when he needed quiet, renting videos for him without being prompted, keeping him focused on his school stuff - whatever bitching he had in him about that, he'd swallowed. So. If Max had an idea that she needed to get an arm around his waist, even under the shirt, and the other around his neck...

He stroked her hair. She'd given him everything he didn't deserve. What did Max deserve?

She bit him, teeth against his shoulder, digging in as muscle jumped - then, more than the sharpness, he felt the heat and wetness of her mouth almost like spilling blood, and yet more softness by the second. She _kissed him_.

Billy pictured himself running. Sure, that was one answer. Max started crying before he could bring himself to move away from her, long moans like he didn't think he'd heard out of someone sober.

"No, no, no. Oh, oh my God. I can't, Billy, Billy, please."

"Something happened. Spit it out," he whispered back.

"There was a flower, Billy," Max said. "It, it got stuff on me. And now I'm... I can't, I can't, don't look, don't go, _NO_..."

Billy shook her off without breaking a sweat. Just to put distance between them, not to leave - and he watched Max begin to shiver uncontrollably, even though she had an uneven blush of racing blood all over the skin that wasn't under bedclothes.

He ran to get a scarf. His friends back in California had given him a couple of ugly ones as a gag gift before the move, and he grabbed one out of the box in the corner of his wardrobe.

When he came back, Max's eyelids were heavy, dipping and fluttering like she was ready to pass out again. He tied her hands in front of her, then dragged the bedclothes between them again.

"What the hell kind of flower, Max. What the fuck did you find, and where?"

"Touch me?" she said. "I'm - dying. I can't see. Touch me."

Billy pet her hair again, now maybe as damp from sweat as from the shower. He moved his hands down to stroke fingertips over the soft hairs at her nape until she blinked and her eyes focused. He held firm to one of her hands, also checking to see he hadn't cut off circulation with the scarf, and she wrapped both hands around his grip. And he could see her legs moving under the blanket, restlessly and rhythmically.

"Max. Seriously. What kind of flower was this?" He'd been about to say _fucking flower_, and hoped she hadn't caught the tiny break in his voice when he decided to leave that one word out.

"An Upside Down thing. I'm sure that's ... it had teeth."

He held her. Wrapped both his arms around her shoulders, tight, and let her bound hands sneak under the blankets and between her legs as he looked over her head, at the fluttering curtains not fully drawn over her windows. It was surreal. It should have been disgusting, but Billy had barely been in his own head for nearly two months and he wasn't planning on starting now. Whatever protest was in him was won over by the simple fact that it was helping. He was helping Max. Nothing else counted. He was returning the favour, paying off what he owed, doing what small and strange and impossible thing he had to - just like Max had, for nearly two months and more.

All he had to do was stroke her hair. Squeeze her shoulders under the bedclothes, so she could feel enough skin. Not look down.

It took a long time of murmured moans and shaking, of rhythmic jerks, arms and hips, muffled through the fabric between them. Max had lost it a little again, kissed him again, but just two of those and she'd pulled a face and choked back a sob. She really did like her own tough girl act, just like he'd always liked his tough guy act.

But by the end, she was sagged against him. Still shivering, but he thought it might be more from being exhausted and empty. He held her tighter.

"Billy," she whispered. "I'm going to have to tell the others. We have to warn them, they'll..."

"You know how you have these great friends?" he said quietly. "Badasses and world-saving nerds and all that? Well, Max, they will actually fucking kill me."

"We have to warn them! They'll have to know..." She was close to crying again.

"Look, we'll just tell them it made you sick as hell. It's a poison, take precautions, don't get any of it on your skin, that's it. Like anything else is really necessary?"

"Gasoline," Max said.

"Huh?"

"That it's already been burned. Every flower there. That's ... that's something else I could tell them. I know _exactly_ where I found it."

They ended up also taking cooking oil, a few cans of deoderant and a screwdriver to puncture them with, and when Billy remembered the saying "salt the ashes", some of the road salt for the driveway left over from winter. They trudged through the trees behind the house with bandanas tied over their nose and mouths, garden gloves and plastic bags over their hands, and Max ignoring every wobble in her step.

It was easy to see why she'd checked out the flowers to start with. They grew on vines that at first you didn't want to believe were growing upwards into nothing, straight from crumbling soil and winding up air like it was a trellis, and their dusty petals were lined with sharp pink points.

"You don't have to be OK, you know," Billy said as they waited out the fire, both of them keeping salt ready for afterwards. "It's, like, a of shit. So, we're burning them, it's a good thing to do, but it doesn't mean ... it's all over."

"Don't go. If you don't want to," Max told him, like that had anything to do with what he'd just said. But it did make Billy stop being nervous to look at her. As expected, she looked awful - pale like she was really going to get sick this time, furious and miserable.

"What?"

"Now you know I mean it, since I'm saying it after all this. It's not pity or anything. I'd miss you if you went out of Hawkins. It is probably better if you want to get out of the house, I get that. But..." She got the courage to look at him too, just a quick one, and then stared back at the fire.

They stood in front of the blaze, lost. Nothing new. They'd been lost together for months now. But they moved closer to each other, this time.


End file.
